Death of English Sovereigns.
WILLIAM the Conqueror died of enormous fat, from drink, and from the violence of his passions. William Rufus died the death of the poor stags which he hunted. Henry I. died of gluttony. Henry II. died of a broken heart, occasioned by the bad conduct of his children. Richard Cœur De Lion, like the animal from which his heart was named, died by an arrow from an archer. John died, nobody knows how; but it is said from chagrin, which, we suppose, is another term for a dose of hellebore. Henry III. is said to have died a "natural death." Edward I. is also said to have died of a "natural sickness"—a sickness which would puzzle all the college physicians to denominate. Edward II. was barbarously and indecently murdered by ruffians employed by his own wife and her paramour. Edward III. died of dotage, and Richard II. of starvation—the very reverse of George IV. Henry IV. is said to have died of "fits caused by uneasiness," and uneasiness in palaces in those times was a very common complaint. Henry V. is said to have died of a "painful affliction, prematurely." This is a courtly term for getting rid of a king. Henry VI. died in prison, by means known then only to his jailer, and now only known in Heaven. Edward V. was strangled in the tower by his uncle, Richard III. Richard III. was killed in battle. Henry VII. wasted away, as a miser ought to. Henry VIII. died of carbuncles, fat and fury. Edward VI. died of a decline. Queen Mary is said to have died of a broken heart. Old Queen Bess is said to have died of melancholy, from having sacrificed Essex to his enemies. James I. died of drinking and the effects of vice. Charles I. died on the scaffold. Charles II. died suddenly—it is said of apoplexy. William III. died of consumptive habits of body and from the stumbling of his horse. Queen Anne died of dropsy. George I. died of drunkenness, which his physicians politely called an apoplectic fit. George II. died of a rupture of the heart, which the periodicals of that day termed a visitation of God. George III. died as he had lived—a madman. Throughout life he was at least a consistent monarch. George IV. died of gluttony and drunkenness.—Sel.